Algeria Counts one AIDS case every Ten Hours

Terrifying figures but government is silent while dealings with AIDS, as thousands of people are carrying in their blood a virus that devastated the humanity, and which spreads rapidly and scarily and becomes out of control.

Earlier Algeria was talking about tens of people living with HIV and hundreds of HIV-positive or what they call serum positive, but today we are in front of a large anonymous number that reaches more than thousands of patients and people living with the deadly virus.

Latest statistics of the Ministry of Health, which are provided by professional associations in the fight against the disease and awareness against it, show that there are 6000 people holders of the virus, including 1985 infected with AIDS, including about 200 kids between newborns and 16 years, where as 50 kids receive continuing treatment at Al Kattar hospital in Algiers only.

Medical sources said there are entire families that are infected with the virus composed of mother, father and children, living in a regions that are contaminated with AIDS, including Ghardaia, Tamanrasset, Tiaret, and Laghouat, where there is the highest proportion of infected among the citizens, but figures did not specify the number of people who died because of the virus, since its discovery in Algeria 25 years ago

6.000 infected in Algeria is scary figure, but it is much lower than the real figure, which is unknown by the Ministry of Health so far, due to the fact that these figures are only for people who have the courage to declare the disease, while millions of Algerians refuse to go to centers of voluntary testing, which are 50 centers across the national territory, for analysis and detection, as they prefer to live with the disease and keep unaware of it, until death, better than to live and know they are AIDS carriers for years.

Real figures are beyond the number that is provided by the Ministry of Health annually, as it recorded since the beginning of year 2012 until last October, 500 new cases of HIV infection, which a scary figure, meaning that a case of HIV is detected every 10 hours, in contrast, the World Health Organization confirmed that every case hides nine other cases, which means that at least 54.000 Algerians may carry the virus in their blood.